Does your outbuilding comply with the regulations?

In the year 2013-2014 there were 19,874 fires recorded in buildings that were not dwellings. The majority of these occurred in buildings such as sheds, garages, outbuildings and storage units.

These parts of our electrical installations are easily forgotten, simply because they are not part of the main house. I have seen many homes in Bexley, Bromley, Sevenoaks and Dartford with poor electrics in outbuildings.

Outbuildings, Garages and Sheds are all required to have their own fuseboard or consumer unit under the BS7671 regulations. Some outbuildings are simply used as sheds and only require basic installations of a few lights and sockets whilst others house studios and gyms or other specialist hobbies equipment that require a workshop.

In addition all socket outlets especially those in which garden equipment is to be plugged into are to be RCD protected, this is to protect you when using the electricity whilst cutting the grass etc., it means that should you accidentally cut through the cable your electricity will disconnect in 0.4 seconds.

These parts of our electrical installations are easily forgotten, simply because they are not part of the main house. There are many homes in Bexley, Bromley, Sevenoaks, Dartford and Greenwich with poor electrics in outbuildings.

These prove to be the oldest parts of the installation and are often in a poor state of repair, sometimes requiring total removal, as new regulations state that these do not meet safety requirements today.

The cable should be buried at a predetermined depth of at least 40cm and must be connected directly to a consumer unit or Fuseboard, protected by a 30ma RCD.

As Your Local Electricians we are happy to give advice on works that you may be planning and we provide free quotations. In some instances depending on the issue we may even be able to quote you a price over the phone and attend in the same day. So if you would like a quotation to install or upgrade your garage, shed or summerhouse electrics in Bexley, Bromley, Sevenoaks or Dartford boroughs then please call Mark on 01322 686 073. 

For your peace of mind we are registered with the NICEIC and are one of very few local electricians registered with Which? Trusted Trader Scheme.